Thank you, Madam Chair.
In light of the nature of the subject, I should say a few words about me and my background. I'm a Michif person from Manitoba. I'm one of 12 children of a Métis trapper, fisherman, and carpenter. I was born in 1943. I've seen life in very different circumstances from what we live today. I am a retired professor of law, a practising lawyer, and I spent some 28 years, on and off, participating in deliberations in Geneva on the UN declaration.
I shall comment on three basic points today. First is the matter of interpreting the text of the declaration to apply it in Canada. I'm arguing against the formalistic approach. I will also argue the need for a rational and defensible federal recognition policy respecting the section 35 aboriginal peoples. Finally, I will suggest that the federal Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which reported in 1996, ought to be considered in designing the plan of action contemplated by Bill C-262. That was a commission, I must disclose, of which I was a member.
First, on interpretation of the text I begin by emphasizing the important statements in the preamble of the bill that treaty and aboriginal rights as well as human rights are underlying values and principles of the Constitution of Canada. Therefore, we know that no foreign ideas are being introduced here. Canada's initial hesitancy and refusal to adopt the declaration was a rather shameful retreat from what a friend and colleague described as Canada's international image: that of a boy scout. The image had been garnered by Canada's efforts internationally since the days of Lester Pearson, as you will know. It seems to me that the adoption of Bill C-262 would help to wash the mud off the boy scout's face.
Pardon me for reading some of these notes verbatim. It helps me not to yield to my propensity to act as a didactic twit, given my long career in universities.
Opposition to adoption of the declaration seems to lean, at least in the public eye, upon reasons that flow from a formalistic approach to its interpretation. The exegete must not be seduced by a close scrutiny of each word in a text. Let us keep in mind that the text of the declaration exists in six official and very different languages. The interpretation of the declaration requires throwing away the looking glass of the formalist approach, which examines each word or phrase in isolation. In each case, we must consider the relevance of all the various human rights standards evident in the declaration, as well as elsewhere in international law, and apply them to Canadian circumstances.
A realist approach to interpretation will seek to apply to each domestic situation engaging state-indigenous relations the principles and the values behind the declaration, infused as they must be with the values of the indigenous peoples to which the facts draw attention. The question is about how the human rights standards, viewed holistically, ought to apply to the facts of each case. The issue is not so much what the declaration says, but what it means.
Canada must begin to accept the existence of power and authority residing in various sources. I emphasize that the purpose of the declaration is to guide state-indigenous relationships. Consequently, after some time, after Canada has adopted the declaration and implemented Bill C-262, if we have focused upon the values and the purposes of the declaration, I believe that interpretative approach would allow us to say, “Well, we're getting along better now, aren't we?” Is that not the true object?
My second point is that Canada must adopt a defensible policy to recognize the aboriginal peoples, in section 35, and to perform its constitutional duty to make those rights effective.
Who are the aboriginal peoples? I have a book with that very title. Nobody on the indigenous side wanted to touch this question in Geneva. Some states were reluctant to accept the declaration without a definition. My point here is that adoption of the declaration will add little to the promotion of an understanding of the issues here, and it's a very vexed issue.
The most salient issues are reaction to the 1982 recognition of the rights of aboriginal peoples. Our problem lies in history, in Canada's traditional policy, which has been rooted in the Indian Act. Unilaterally, in a breach of treaties, this act purported to offer legal recognition to Indians. The problem is that the Indian is a ghost of the European imagination.
Canada's aboriginal peoples, the ones who have been here aboriginally or since the beginning, are the Mi'kmaq, the Tlingit, the Cree, notably the Haida, and so on. The descendants of some of these aboriginal peoples who have not been recognized in the act are trying to fit themselves into the category of section 35, aboriginal peoples.
The name that's been applied to these people historically has been non-status Indians. Their situation has been obscured by the large number of claims from self-identifying mixed-blood peoples across the country since the 1980s. As the courts have held, section 35 affirms rights that are based on historical state-indigenous relations of peoples, not upon personal antecedents. One of the points is that the consultations that have to occur under Bill C-262 must keep these points in mind.
My final point concerns the national action plan with consultations. A serious look should be given to the analyses and recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Even the recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended a royal proclamation as a good symbolic start. The federal government itself reorganized its structures by splitting into two departments. I have a commentary in public media on that point.
A first ministers' conference is necessary, because the provinces must be engaged in order to make the Constitution and the treaties effective, and to make the Constitution legitimate. New institutions will have to be designed. I can't think of a more important one than the model of the lands and treaties tribunal. I really urge you to have a look at volume 2 of the RCAP's analysis, which leads to the recommendation of an aboriginal lands and treaties tribunal. The specific claims policy and its related policies really do not work, and they ought to be rejected.
I will yield to the time constraints, Madam Chair.